The DIY bug hit me hard again in December. Ended up making 3 sew-up PLUQs and stuff sacks for my daughters and my oldest daughter's boyfriend for Christmas. Santa brought me some Climashield Apex and some coyote brown 1.1 oz ripstop to turn into a TQ and UQ for me. Unfortunately when I figured up how much insulation I thought I would need for the TQ I came up a little short...so...my youngest daughter ended up with a Climashield TQ which fit her perfectly.





On the flip side, my miscalculation allowed me to make a full-length climashield UQ...



Fortunately for me my birthday is in a month and a half and I think I can convince someone to pop for some more materials...

I've got to admit, working with 1.1 oz ripstop was a bit of a pain. It wasn't completely unbearable but 1.9 oz is certainly easier to deal with. I will say that hot-cutting with a chisel-tip wood burning tool makes a world of difference in the amount of 'frizzies' from the edge of the material you have to deal with.

Since we had a little warm spell last week I asked the kids if they wanted to camp out in the back yard Friday night to test out our new gear. Of course they wanted to! I was a little concerned about the PLUQs because the PLs that I bought off of fleabay seemed to be a bit thin. I added a layer of polyester batting to each and as it turned out, all of the kids stayed warm even with the low being about 35 degrees. Jenna loved her new TQ and I was fairly cozy in my UQ...



Aside from cutting the material for the TQ a little short, it was a fairly successful DIY month...